Continuing Steps in Karate

  This way of looking at karate is influenced heavily by Walter Ong’s Orality and Literacy (1982) and Lynne Kelly’s Power and Knowledge in Prehistoric Societies (2015) and The Memory Code (2016).  What follows is where my thoughts on kata's purpose and structure have gone, based on the issues and concepts these texts cover.  Kata were created within the context of oral knowledge traditions as a means to retain, recall and transmit knowledge. They are a tool, a vehicle through which knowledge is conveyed, rather than being the knowledge itself.   Having said that, in order to use them effectively, we also need to have knowledge of the kata itself and the ability to recall and demonstrate it/run through it automatically and faithfully. In this regard, kata are a mnemonic device, with particular structure and knowledge features.  They: Are memory prompts - they do not demonstrate/shadow-box complete sequences of movement, just those bits that need recall or are t...

I have spent entirely too much time on the internet over the last 20-odd years, and entirely too much of that time on martial arts discussion boards.  Starting with e-budo.com back in the late 90s, I must have been either a member or regular lurker of all of the major forums and some of the not-so-major ones too.  Now, I still check out a couple of forums regularly (mostly Martialartsplanet.com), but most of my online martial arts fix comes from facebook where I'm a member of 8 different, active groups.  Funnily enough, some topics just keep coming up again and again and again and again.  Probably because one of the not-so-great things about the internet is that many people like to talk and don't actually listen to the other side; spouting off is more important (my view on that is that if you want to pontificate, don't do it in a forum, create your own blog to do it in! Forums should  be for exchanging ideas and holding conversations - not that they ever have be...

The purpose of the belt And I don’t want to rehash the old, old, old ‘joke’ about it holding up your pants (karate belts hold the top closed in any case). Why award a belt in the first place? What purpose does it have within the eyes of the awardee, their sensei, their dojo, their organisation, and outside their organisation? The individual The purpose of a black belt, in the eyes of the person awarded it, is the hardest question to answer. Each person will likely have their own take on it, depending on how they view the continuum of ranking in the martial arts, what preconceptions they brought into their training prior to beginning karate, and environment and the attitudes of their dojo and peers. So, I’m not going to discuss this aspect, as I will probably only project my own values onto others if I do. But it is an aspect that I think each person who is aiming for, or has achieved a certain level within karate needs to reflect on. For me, my personal opinion is the real arbite...

One of the perennial questions in the martial arts is "What is chi/qi/ki?"  Does it really exist, what does it do, how does it work? There have been a few posts on this topic on forums I frequent, and I'm posting here an expanded response I made on one of them. I identify different ways of defining ki/chi/qi. Ki that is a visualisation aid or metaphor for what the body is doing ("sink your ki into the ground", feel your energy shoot along your arm and out your little finger") I have no problems with as they can, depending on the person, aid in getting the correct technique or feeling better than, say, explaining something in anatomical terms.   Personally, I sometimes visualise a flowing, glowing line in my mind's eye when putting on certain locks and holds; it helps me get the correct bits in the correct place with the correct rhythm, but it's a way of mentally processing what I should be doing, rather than a causative factor. Ki as a direct an...